Washington Branch American Association Laboratory Animal Science

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Roxanne Briggs
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Washington Branch American Association Laboratory Animal Science WBAALAS Institutional Members Acedia Allen Institute for Brain Science Allentown Inc.

Center Harlan Ikaria, Inc. KLASS Labconco Lithgow Laboratory Services Lomir Inc Lynx Product Group Marshall BioResources Nuaire, Inc. NWABR Pharmacal Research Laboratories, Inc.

VWR The Lab Animal Science community and family has suffered a great loss in the recent death of Ron Orta. Ron touched many lives, not just locally, but all over the country and the world.

1 Washington Branch American Association Laboratory Animal Science WBAALAS Institutional Members Acedia Allen Institute for Brain Science Allentown Inc. Amgen Ancare Corp Animal Specialties Inc Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason Charles River Laboratories Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Harlan Ikaria, Inc. KLASS Labconco Lithgow Laboratory Services Lomir Inc Lynx Product Group Marshall BioResources Nuaire, Inc. NWABR Pharmacal Research Laboratories, Inc. Purina Mills LabDiet Seattle Genetics Sonus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Tecniplast USA VetEquip Inc. VWR The Lab Animal Science community and family has suffered a great loss in the recent death of Ron Orta. Ron touched many lives, not just locally, but all over the country and the world. Ron was a well known and well loved man who will be greatly missed Ronald "Ron" Orta, 61 of Granite Falls, Washington died October 29, He was born November 21, 1945 in Hondo, Texas. Ron served in the US Navy during Vietnam. He graduated from Washington State University in He worked as an animal scientist for over 30 years. Ron is survived by his wife of 24 years, Geralyn "Geri" Orta; two sons, Scott and wife, Jennifer Orta, of Auburn, WA, and Shaun Orta, of Lake Stevens, WA; two brothers, Max and wife, Peggy Orta, of Los Angeles, CA, and John Orta, of Phoenix, AZ; two grandchildren, Austin and Ember. Funeral Mass will be held at 9 a.m., Saturday, November 3, 2007, at St. Michael's Catholic Church, 1512 Pine Ave. Snohomish, WA Memorials may be made to ARDS Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Foundation, 3100 Dundee Road, Suite 402, Northbrook, IL Published in The Herald (Everett) on 10/31/2007 View or Sign Guestbook Good-Bye Ron Ron Orta 1945 to 2007

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WBAALAS Page 3 of 14 January 2008 Membership Renewal Elections Upcoming

Party April 23-24, 2008 District 8 Meeting in Seattle Vendor registration

htm Attendee registration will be available soon.

2008 Board of Directors President Elect If you, or someone you know, would

3 WBAALAS Page 3 of 14 January 2008 Membership Renewal Elections Upcoming Events January 16, 2008 Board and General Membership Meeting and Pizza Party April 23-24, 2008 District 8 Meeting in Seattle Vendor registration now available online. Attendee registration will be available soon. Summer 2008 WBAALAS Picnic Nominations now Being Accepted For the WBAALAS 2008 Board of Directors President Elect If you, or someone you know, would like to be on the board and be more involved with local AALAS activities, please let us know. susanb@sonuspharma.com

AALAS District 8 Meeting Seattle April 23-24, 2008 Topics to Absorb: Geckos Humor in the Workplace Murine Norovirus Rodent Colony Management Humane DNA Sampling

Helen Diggs - UC Berkley Veterinarian Chris Newcomer 2008 AALAS President Ann Turner AALAS Executive Director Get Wet Workshops: Xenopus Frogs Rodent Handling

4 AALAS District 8 Meeting Seattle April 23-24, 2008 Topics to Absorb: Geckos Humor in the Workplace Murine Norovirus Rodent Colony Management Humane DNA Sampling Lean Management Guest Sprinklers: Kathy Laber AAALAC Council Pres. Helen Diggs - UC Berkley Veterinarian Chris Newcomer 2008 AALAS President Ann Turner AALAS Executive Director Get Wet Workshops: Xenopus Frogs Rodent Handling Blood Draw Techniques Rodent Necropsy Gas Anesthesia Rodent Imaging Technology Also Featuring : Technician Fun Fair AALAS Certification Exams More still to come! Find more information at: WBAALAS Website: District 8 Website:

WBAALAS Page 4 of 14 2007 Picnic Members and families attended the picnic this year at Carkeek Park.

The picnic was so well attended by canine members we might have to consider having the picnic at or near a dog

for donating all the beverages, as well as the coolers to keep them in and also Shawn Hooper of Charles River

5 WBAALAS Page 4 of Picnic Members and families attended the picnic this year at Carkeek Park. Food was aplenty and it was a relaxing afternoon in the sun. The picnic was so well attended by canine members we might have to consider having the picnic at or near a dog park next year! Thank you Animal Specialties, Inc. for donating all the beverages, as well as the coolers to keep them in and also Shawn Hooper of Charles River Laboratories for donating items to the raffle. The coolers (and whatever was left in them!) were raffled off at the end of the picnic. Be sure to read future newsletters and check the website for information on next year s picnic.

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7 WBAALAS Page 6 of 14 A First Hand View of Disaster Planning Cynthia Pekow, DVM, DACLAM About 10 years ago, at a laboratory animal science meeting in Mexico, I met Araceli Olivares Guerrero, a woman from the city of Villahermosa, in Tabasco, a state in Mexico's south. She had some relatives in Seattle, and asked if it would be OK if she could come and learn about lab animal facility management at my facility, while staying in town with her relatives. Her goal was to pass her AALAS certification at the LATG level. The university who employed her was willing to let her come, because they were planning to construct a new animal facility, and wanted her trained to manage it. We had a fun year, during which she worked very hard, and indeed did pass the LATG exam, literally 24 hours before returning to Mexico. A few years later, the new animal facility was built, and Araceli had a key role in designing the facility and writing the SOPs for its management and animal care. We have kept in touch and visited over the years. Araceli is poised to complete her CMAR certification from AALAS. Her animal facility houses rats and mice for use by researchers at the university. We have had some recent heavy rains and flooding in Seattle, but nothing like the disastrous conditions that hit Tabasco in early November of this year. You can read about the disaster on the web, for example at Basically, over 80% of the state flooded when rivers overflowed, affecting over 1 million people. Villahermosa has had floods in the past, but this is the worst recorded. I sent a message asking how she was doing. She let me know that by some miracle her home and the university had not flooded, but classes were cancelled and the buildings were being used to provide shelter for people left homeless by the floods. Her supplies of animal food and bedding were holding out, but she was worried about having enough water. She planned to save the animals critical to maintain breeding colonies. On November 23, she sent me the following update (with apologies for any inaccuracies in my translation of her Spanish): "Well, here we continue fighting against the water, even though we are not out of danger. A hill gave way in Chiapas [a nearby state] and formed a dam that blocked the course of the Grijalva River, and we're in terrible anxiety because if the river doesn't return to its course, all of Tabasco will disappear. It's an immense quantity of water held back. The animal facility survived its trial by fire with this emergency. We have been working without any problems, for the 15 days of this critical situation. The animals have been maintained very well, and the research investigations continue. I am very proud of this. When they advised me that we were in risk of flooding I didn't doubt for a minute that I would come to the animal facility. I brought my children [two teens] and lived here with them for a week, thinking that if the animal care staff couldn't make it in, I would be able to work with my children. Whatever might come to pass, if I couldn't get to work the animals could die, and then what would happen? But thanks to God, it all came out very well, except we are still not free of the worry that this dam in Chiapas might break, and we are very attentive to government announcements. You know, when I came to your animal facility and started to study [for AALAS LATG certification] the first chapter I studied was about building security, and I thought "This won't come to pass in Mexico", with electronic card access and security cameras, etc, and now 9 years later I realize that now that we have come to this level, its impossible to do without them. The same with the disaster planning, I thought it would not be necessary and here you see me totally applying it in practice." We all have disaster plans, and for most of us, we haven't had the need to put them into practice. But it's nice to know that that planning may actually help us out in a time of crisis.

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15 WBAALAS Page 14 of 14 And, for one final time, Ron s business card ad.

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